Hannah Jones/Winonan

Winona State student Courtney McCaw threw back her chair and let out a savage growl, stomping to the edge of the stage.

She looked out over the rows of empty seats in Somsen Auditorium, perhaps imagining what they would look like filled with spectators, and shouted her first line:

“My vagina’s ANGRY!”

Jax Pugh, Sarah Stuhr and the rest of the actors assembled onstage were McCaw’s only audience, but nonetheless, the declaration reverberated through the room like Lexington’s Shot Heard ‘Round the World.

Pugh merely nodded and allowed McCaw to continue, unfazed by the emotional temperament of the vagina in question. By that time, such announcements had become routine.

Pugh has wanted to be involved in “The Vagina Monologues” since she saw it for the first time when she was 13 years old. Later, in her freshman year at Winona State, she saw a poster for auditions for a school production of Eve Ensler’s play in a bathroom stall.

She had found her chance.

Now, in her third year working with “The Vagina Monologues”, she and co-director Sarah Stuhr are bringing the play back to Winona State for its eleventh year at the university on Feb. 14, 15 and 16.

Rehearsals for the production have been in motion since the actors were cast shortly before winter break. Since then, they’ve been hard at work memorizing their monologues, which were written based on the stories of hundreds of real women Ensler interviewed.

The premise of the show is simple: get people to talk about vaginas. Each monologue offers a different perspective on what women think of their vaginas, and what the world thinks of them, along the way addressing issues of gender inequality, pejorative words, violence, rape, tampons, having sex, not having sex and coming to terms with a word and a part that seldom makes its way into civil conversation.

In spite of its relative simplicity, “the Vagina Monologues” was the first play of its kind when it debuted in 1996.

“Eve Ensler shook the world in getting women to stand up and talk about their vaginas,” Pugh said.

“The Vagina Monologues” blazed an unabashed trail for women’s rights to their bodies and to how they think about them. However, the play is not the final word on the issue.

Critics of the play have pointed out that “The Vagina Monologues” says little on the subject of women who do not have vaginas, and men who do. Although the production does contain one transgender monologue, Pugh and Stuhr have reworked the production to include two additional monologues to address the issue.

These monologues are original pieces written by two Winonans who identify as transgender or outside the gender binary, adding their personal stories to the pool already assembled by Ensler fifteen years ago.

“[The Vagina Monologues] is a starting point,” said Pugh. A lot, she went on to comment, has changed in fifteen years. It is this year’s production’s aim to work toward a show that is more modern and more inclusive, a show that continues to push the audience to think and ask questions about their bodies and the bodies of others. For this reason, Pugh and Stuhr are including an audience talkback at the end of the show.

This year’s production is also special because it marks the fifteenth anniversary of the play, and the culmination of “One Billion Rising”, Ensler’s global movement to end violence inspired by “The Vagina Monologues”.

All over the world, on Febr. 14, actors will be sharing productions of the monologues and raising audience awareness of violence against human beings everywhere. Winona’s chapter of “One Billion Rising” will also include a special presentation here on campus.

Pugh did not give specifics, but smiled and asked students to be on the lookout.

The actors themselves continue to work hard on the production. Though some were apprehensive at the start of the rehearsal process—sometimes getting used to saying the word “vagina” without flinching is a task in itself—the pieces progress quickly.

“Rehearsals around this time are always scary,” confessed Jax, “but it always comes together in the end.”

Meanwhile, all over the world, countless productions of “The Vagina Monologues” are speaking out, sharing stories of joy, pain, embarrassment, pride, belonging and defiance—in essence, “coming together.”

Tickets will go on sale the week of the performances: $10 for adults, and $8 for Winona State students. All of the profits from the tickets, t-shirts and merchandise will go to the Women’s Resource Center in Winona.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]